The neo-liberal move to depoliticise and deregulate governance of public sectors by transferring them to the technocratic and administrative marketplace management endangers the political and democratic processes at all levels. It influences education and educational leadership at their very core: the purpose of education is shifting from intending to raise autonomous and critical participants in democracies, to aiming to produce an affirmative and employable workforce. This chapter analyses current developments in politics, administration and governance at state, municipal and institutional levels from a democratic perspective, and discusses concepts and practices of education and educational leadership with these same views. Two paradigms are described, in order to find the core of both kinds of theories: an outcomes-oriented, and a participation-oriented perspective. From a normative, democratic, viewpoint, it is argued that the core of each should be non-coercive relationships, developing deliberative practices in contemporary contexts is the main perspective in the chapter. [For the complete volume, "Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik: Non-Affirmative Theory of Education. Educational Governance Research. Volume 5," see ED612477.]